When Clinton said that she wished Trump could have been presidential, I thought: I wish he could have been human.
When Clinton said that she wished Trump could have been presidential, I thought: I wish he could have been human.
I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.
But he never did. For close to four years now, he has shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.
Team Trump’s ticket to succeed his administration. He’ll have to grant Katie American native-born citizenship first, but I’m sure he can do that.
His retweet of a Trump Forever video sparked the geniuses at the Lincoln Project. (Scroll down for both videos.)
And a-one and a-two. When the Genius of the Carpathians meets the Genius of Bergen meets the Lincoln Project, great things happen.
Couldn’t have done it without the original tweet from Trump. Keep ’em coming.
… fickle.
******************
Donald è mobile…
*******************
[English translation.]
Donald is fickle
Like a feather in the wind,
He changes his voice — and his mind.
Always sweet,
Pretty face,
In tears or in laughter — he is always lying.
Recite The Credo with me.
… that Mount Rushmore was America’s grandest outcropping of kitsch.
No, no, they’d say! I went there in the fourth grade with my family and we all thought it was awesome!
*************************
WE HAVE GOT TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN. If it takes a Go Fund Me page; if it takes bake sales all over this land, my lord, all over this land; if it takes sacrifice sacrifice and more sacrifice, this has got to happen.
*************************
Will it be as great as Carhenge? No. But it will be great.
***************
He does tend to stir the creative imagination. Also really great writing. This, says Scathing Online Schoolmarm, is unbeatable. Highlights from a tightly organized, tonally controlled, brilliantly concise, little masterpiece:
no pollster left to lie to him
listened to the lethal quackery
harmful and bizarre
result of a country run by a crackpot
dereliction of duty, son.
fevered with viral hot spots.
Of late, Trump has been itching for a riot.
Nixon is a notch higher in the hell-scape
He’s Trump with a pious veneer
a timely bootlick.
*******************
And see what he’s about in his final paragraph? See all the ys, all the ee sounds that come off the page? The writer knows how to make prose poetic, and therefore much more coherent and powerful.
But there’s another image, equally satisfying. Trump could play one last gambit in the dictator’s checklist and refuse to leave office on Jan. 20 — election or no election — as required by the Constitution. If he does this, a weary nation would be rewarded with a presidential perp walk, as Trump is escorted out of the White House and into infamy by the military police.
If you lack the alliteration, assonance, perfect-wordism, and tonal cool this writer enjoys in abundance, sorry. Not everybody gets the style goodies. But you can learn a lot by reading him carefully.
One of America’s most prominent conservatives, Steven G. Calabresi, is calling for impeachment and removal, asap.
It would have been nice if Trump had postponed going full Kanye West until after the election. Unfortunately, he is breaking apart far faster than one might have anticipated, and this endangers us all.
Say what you will about our Genius of the Carpathians; he has inspired some of our best political writing, like this short piece from Peter Wehner.
(Wehner’s stylish marriage of crude and cruel brings to mind Vladimir Nabokov’s elegant description of Don Quixote: “a cruel and crude old book.”)
Also some of our best political advertisements, like this Seinfeld takeoff.
***************
No doubt wags up and down this land are sharpening their pencils as they sketch out Trump Finds Out He Can’t Win versions of this much-parodied bit of film.
Republicans up and down the ballot have also galvanized around a central 2020 messaging strategy focused on branding Democrats as far-left lovers of socialism. Months of that groundwork is now, at least in part, set back by the president’s own comments.
Bet it can’t even drink a glass of water with one hand, or walk down a ramp without serious difficulty. AMERICA DESERVES BETTER!!!
She’ll be worth the entire GDP of Slovenia.
To pose with a Bible in front of St John’s Church.
(Via my friend Martin Krygier.)
Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times
George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil
It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo
There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub
You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann
Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog
University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog
[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal
Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education
[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University
Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University
The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog
Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages
Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway
From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law
University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association
The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog
I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes
As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls
Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical
University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life
[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada
If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte